


Try Starting with I'm Sorry

by MrsHamill



Series: Riding the Wheel of If [19]
Category: Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Angst, M/M, Self Confidence Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-09-19
Updated: 2003-09-19
Packaged: 2018-05-21 22:04:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,293
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6059734
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MrsHamill/pseuds/MrsHamill
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Obi-Wan is a pain in the ass. Poor Dotrick.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Try Starting with I'm Sorry

**Author's Note:**

> Not beta'd, for which I truly apologize.

When Dotrick arrived in the topiary garden, she found Obi-Wan Kenobi already there, pacing furiously, running his fingers through his hair and muttering to himself. Before she actually allowed him to sense her, she scanned him quickly. His 'public' mind -- lucky for her, most Force sensitives had excellent deep shielding -- was a roiling mass of insecurities, anger, self-loathing and panic. Sighing quietly, she carefully erected the porous shield she often used around him when he was in this state -- it looked to be about Stage Three, she assessed -- and moved closer to him.

The low bench near him was bathed in sunlight, and she smiled. Even in the depths of his pain, Obi-Wan tried to be sensitive to her needs. She would never, ever tell him how his sometimes irrational behavior often caused her mental pain. He didn't need to know and it didn't have any lasting effects on her.

He'd stopped pacing when she approached, but didn't speak until she was settled on the bench, the warm sunlight feeling marvelous against her scales. She composed herself and waited; she knew that, eventually, he'd explain why he had called her and asked for this meeting, outside their regular schedule.

"I've done it again," he finally said. He slumped and through the tight aperture of her mental shield she felt another wave of self-loathing. "I'm really getting quite good at it."

"What have you done, Obi-Wan?" Dotrick asked. 

He swallowed hard. "Alienated another friend. Ruined another friendship. Pissed off someone I love. Take your pick."

"Why don't you just tell me what happened," Dotrick said dryly. Obi-Wan was nothing if not melodramatic.

He sighed noisily and abruptly seated himself on the grass at her feet. "Siri, one of my oldest and best friends," he said cryptically. She waited patiently and eventually, he spoke again. "She's on Dantooine for a rotation, working with the archivists trying to catalog all the ancient texts and get them scanned before they disintegrate. It's a time-consuming, dirty job, but she's excellent at it, and she knows it."

Studying the grass he sat on, Obi-Wan pulled his knees up to his chest and wrapped his arms around them. "We've been corresponding off and on while she's there, and even though she bitches about it, I know she's enjoying herself. Then..."

He trailed off and Dotrick felt the sadness in his thoughts. "Then?" she prompted quietly.

"She sent me a message yesterday. I couldn't believe it, the way she was talking. I responded angrily, hell, I was incensed, and I never should have said anything. But I did, and now she's furious with me, more than furious, and I don't know how to apologize."

Performing a quick scan of Obi-Wan's mind, Dotrick picked up brief flashes of the transmission he had sent to Siri. It wasn't quite enough, though she recognized the tone. "You responded to her message negatively," she asked to confirm, and he nodded but didn't look up. "What did she say that had you so angry?"

"I don't even know," he said dully. "I don't know why, it was just a message, filled with gossip, descriptions of the Temple there, her work, and bitching about the job. She... she said something about an archivist who was making her work there twice as hard as it needed to be. Something about going 'darkside on his ass' or maybe killing herself in frustration. Something like that."

"How did she respond to your message?"

"She accused me of attacking her." Obi-Wan looked up at her finally, and his eyes were anguished. "I didn't mean it like that, I truly didn't, but I know... it sounded that way. Gods."

"Because you were angry?" Sometimes, getting the truth out of Obi-Wan Kenobi was like pulling a gundark's teeth -- while it was still alive.

"Yes, I... yes. I was." He looked back down at the grass. "It didn't sound like her."

"It didn't?"

"No," he said, his fingers ruffling through the lush grass. "No, it didn't. I told her that, and she denied it. She said it was how she'd always been."

Before Dotrick could formulate her next question, Obi-Wan spoke again. "Bruck Chun is alive here," he said, apropos of nothing. "He was dead in my home universe, he'd turned. Siri was dead too, she died in an attack on someone she was trying to protect. It was a couple of years before... before..."

"Before Naboo." Obi-Wan nodded. Dotrick turned that around in her mind. "Who is Bruck Chun?"

"He's in the Agricorps here, I think," Obi-Wan said. "He was my nemesis, sort of. We hated each other quite passionately."

"Have you run into him?"

"No, though Siri knows him." He frowned. "She said she'd been seeing him, actually. It was a surprise."

"In her message to you?" Obi-Wan looked up at her and frowned. "Did she tell you this in the message she sent you?"

"Oh. Yes, actually. She can be so shallow at times, for someone who's so intelligent. So silly. I don't know what's wrong with her. She said something about how she needed to get laid and was thinking about paying Chun's way out to Dantooine. Ridiculous."

"What's ridiculous?" Dotrick asked. "That she's willing to pay his way to see her or that she's seeing him at all?"

"Either. Both." Obi-Wan ran his hands through his hair again, and Dotrick could read his agitation increasing. 

Suspecting she was close to the sore spot, she cocked her head. "Did it make you angry that she's seeing this Chun person?" she asked.

"Well of course it did," Obi-Wan said. "Chun is an idiot, a bully. He'd _turned_ for Force's sake."

"In your universe, yes, he did," Dotrick replied calmly. "But not in this universe, apparently."

"What difference does that make?" Obi-Wan demanded. He twisted so that he was facing her. "He was an idiot there, he's bound to be an idiot here."

"Obi-Wan," Dotrick said, lowering her voice so that he would lower his, "you of all people know that's not necessarily true. You're applying what happened to you in your original universe to this universe."

He shook his head, and once again ran his fingers through his hair, this time yanking, hard. Ah, Dotrick thought. Stage Four.

"I can't see how that matters," Obi-Wan insisted. His breathing was becoming harsher.

Leaning forward, Dotrick touched Obi-Wan's shoulder to get his attention. "There are two problems here, Obi-Wan," she said, making her voice quieter and quieter. "One, that you've terribly hurt a good friend somehow, and two, that you lost your temper and overreacted to something. We need to find out why you overreacted, I think, before we go to the first part."

"I don't _know_ why," Obi-Wan said, with some exasperation.

"Then we will have to find out," she replied, reasonably. "Something that Siri said to you in her message angered you. Infuriated you."

"Yes." Another wave of self-loathing came from Obi-Wan which Dotrick easily deflected and calmed.

"How far back do we have to go?" Dotrick asked. "Your childhood... your travels? You said Siri died before you began your travels."

"Yes," Obi-Wan said, swallowing. She felt his emotions change to sadness. "I missed her -- even though she drove me crazy at times. Finding her alive here was... it was wonderful."

"I can imagine," Dotrick replied. "How did finding out this Chun person was alive make you feel?" Obi-Wan stomped on his anger fairly quickly, but not so quickly that Dotrick couldn't feel it. "It made you angry," she said dryly.

Obi-Wan sighed. "Yes, it did," he said. 

"So, in the message Siri sent you," Dotrick said, watching Obi-Wan carefully as she spoke, "Siri said that she missed Chun, and that she was ready to turn and kill someone -- or possibly herself -- out of frustration."

"A terrible thing to say, but I know she didn't mean it," Obi-Wan muttered.

"You don't sound very sincere," Dotrick said.

"Well she couldn't have," Obi-Wan said angrily. "No one wants to turn! I mean, that's not..."

"But her saying that made you angry, didn't it?"

"I..." Obi-Wan floundered, obviously at a loss.

"She didn't think anything of it, did she?" Dotrick said, once again dropping the volume of her voice.

"No." Obi-Wan scrubbed his face with his hands. "It didn't sound like her."

"But she said it did," Dotrick said. Through her shield, she could pick up his roiling emotions, several of them, so twisted together it was nearly impossible to discern one from the others. "She said that was the way she'd always been."

"It wasn't!" Obi-Wan insisted. He turned and looked up at Dotrick. "It really wasn't, it wasn't. Siri... she wouldn't have said those things. Siri would never be sleeping with Chun."

"I think you're seeing her through a filter -- the Siri you knew, who died," Dotrick said. "Further, I think she managed to hit at least one of your triggers, when she wrote about turning. She blindsided you. What do you think?"

Obi-Wan was shaking his head, and all Dotrick could pick up now was confusion and pain. "I don't..."

"Siri -- the Siri who is here, in this universe -- is obviously substantially the same as the Siri you knew," Dotrick said. "But _you_ are _not_. Here, you have triggers. You have issues that cause you pain. She found and pushed one or two of those, and that sent you over the edge."

"She wouldn't..."

"She doesn't know," Dotrick reminded him gently. "Intellectually, she knows that you're not from this universe. Intellectually, she knows that you've experienced some terrible things. But she doesn't know what they are, does she?"

Obi-Wan opened his mouth then closed it again, along with his eyes. He shook his head.

"Perhaps you should tell her," Dotrick continued.

"No." Obi-Wan set his jaw and shook his head violently. "No. There's no reason for it."

"Not even to explain why you reacted so strongly to a seemingly innocuous message?" This was an issue that had come up before, one that she had marked down to Obi-Wan's not-inconsiderable pride. He didn't like anyone to know how emotionally fragile he could be, and while she respected that, she didn't completely agree with it. While several knew something about his travels, only a very few people in the Temple knew he'd had any problems during them.

"That's assuming she's ever going to speak to me again," Obi-Wan mumbled. He rested his face on his knees. 

"She's your friend, Obi-Wan," Dotrick said softly. 

"I can't see why she'd want to remain so," he replied. "I said some terrible things to her."

"Which reminds me... you sent it as a text message, not as a live transmission," Dotrick said. "You know how easy it is to misinterpret a text message. I think you should either go see her or call her via a live transmission."

She heard him sigh. "Dantooine is on a completely different time zone, and do you know how expensive real-time transmissions are?"

"So?" Dotrick asked. "Do you know how precious your friendship is with her?"

After a moment, she heard him take a shaky breath. "Good point," he whispered.

"While you can apologize in a text message, you cannot guarantee how she'll interpret it. In person, or at least in a live, visual transmission, you can."

Obi-Wan nodded, a jerky motion. He took another deep breath, held it, and slowly let it out, trying to calm himself. She sent him a wave of gentle approval for his efforts. "I have so few friends," he murmured, obviously half to himself. "I've alienated so many of them, because of misunderstandings, things I've said, things they've said, whatever. Sometimes... sometimes I feel like a stranger here, in my own home."

"In a way, you are," Dotrick said. "Where you were raised was called the Jedi Temple, but it was different than here. You were different than you were here. But you are fitting in, and we are making progress." They sat in silence for a while, and Dotrick felt Obi-Wan calm and center. He was still upset, but with her help and his strength, he was getting over it.

"I still have to apologize, and I have no idea how to do that," Obi-Wan finally said, grinding the heels of his palms into his eyes. 

"Try starting with, 'I'm sorry,' and go on from there," Dotrick replied with a smile. "But you should probably do it when you can actually see each other."

With one last deep breath, Obi-Wan nodded. He opened his mouth but was interrupted. His mate, Qui-Gon, was striding across the grass, headed for them. "I'm sorry to interrupt, but Obi-Wan, are you all right?"

Obi-Wan blinked in surprise. "What?" he said, clearly confused.

"I didn't know you were meeting with Healer Dotrick," Qui-Gon said. "I just received a transmission from Siri, and it worried me. She wanted to know if you're all right." He looked between the two of them, frowning. "Are you?"

Calming even further, Obi-Wan slowly stretched and rose. "Actually, not entirely," he replied with a half-smile. "But I can see it from here." He turned and bowed deeply to Dotrick. "Thank you."

"My pleasure, Obi-Wan. Qui-Gon," she added, nodding to him. He smiled and nodded back, even as he took his mate's hand.

As they moved off through the foliage, she heard Obi-Wan speak. "Do you think we can afford a quick trip to Dantooine?" he asked.

"A quick... Obi-Wan, Dantooine is a week away," Qui-Gon said, his voice puzzled. 

They moved out of earshot, and Dotrick leaned back into the waning sunlight. She genuinely liked those two, even if they did drive her crazy at times. Gulla's balls, mammals could be difficult, what with those hormones. Must be all that fuss about live births.

end


End file.
